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John Copeland Nagle

John N. Matthews Professor of Law

Office Number: 3117 Eck Hall of Law
Telephone: 574.631.9407
Fax: 574.631.8078
Email: John.C.Nagle.8@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Gloria Krull

John Copeland Nagle was named the John N. Matthews Professor in 2005. He joined the law faculty as an associate professor of law in 1998 and became a full professor in 2001. He was the law school’s inaugural Associate Dean for Faculty Research from 2004 to 2007.

Professor Nagle is the co-author of casebooks on “The Practice and Policy of Environmental Law, “Property Law,” and “The Law of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management. His book “Law’s Environment: How the Law Shapes the Places We Live,” will be published by Yale University Press in 2010. His other writings have explored such topics as the relationship between environmental pollution, cultural pollution, and other kinds of “pollution;” the role of religion in environmental law; Chinese environmental law; the scope of congressional power to protect endangered species; alternative approaches to campaign finance reform; and the competing roles of Congress and the courts in correcting statutory mistakes. His articles have been published in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the New York University Law Review.

Professor Nagle teaches a number of courses related to environmental law, legislation, and property. In 2002, he received a Distinguished Lectureship award from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to teach environmental law and property law at the Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing. He received another Fulbright award to serve on the faculty of law at the University of Hong Kong in 2008. Professor Nagle has lectured on environmental, legislation, and property issues at numerous forums in the United States, Canada, China, Hungary, and Malaysia.

Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Professor Nagle was an associate professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law from 1994 through 1998. He also worked in the United States Department of Justice, first as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel where he advised other executive branch agencies on a variety of constitutional and statutory issues, and later as a trial attorney conducting environmental litigation. Professor Nagle served as a law clerk to Judge Deanell Reece Tacha of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and he was a scientific assistant in the Energy and Environmental Systems Division of Argonne National Laboratory. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Michigan Law School.

Professor Nagle has participated in numerous activities outside of the law school. He has served as a member of the executive committee of the Section on Legislation of the American Association of Law Schools, and as a vice chair on the Endangered Species Committee of the American Bar Association’s environmental section. He helps organize the annual meeting of the Law Professors’ Christian Fellowship. He served as an elder in the Presbyterian church and is now an elder in the South Bend Christian Reformed Church. He is the faculty adviser for the Christian Law Students, the Journal on Legislation, and Young Life.

His wife Lisa is involved in various educational activities involving China, while his two daughters Laura and Julia learned more Chinese language than Professor Nagle did while living in Beijing.

In the News

Academic Presentations

Beyond Published Writings

  • Nature Photography
    Professor Nagle’s photographs of wildlife and landscapes around the world.

Video Presentations

  • North Dakota Law Review Energy Law Symposium, November 3, 2011
    University of North Dakota School of Law, Grand Forks, North Dakota
    Part 11 – Environmental Protections on Energy, Professor John Nagle

Watch Video

About The John N. Matthews Chair in Law

The John N. Matthews Chair in Law was established in 1967 by Notre Dame Trustee Donald J. Matthews in memory of his father, John N. Matthews. The late Captain John N. Matthews was a ship’s master who in 1929 founded his own marine cargo firm in New York City the Universal Terminal & Stevedoring Corp. from which he retired in 1957.

Donald J. Matthews, a 1955 graduate of Notre Dame, is chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Markets Access Ltd., an insurance holding company headquartered in Bermuda. He was elected to the Notre Dame Board of Trustees in 1971 after having served on the Advisory Council for the College of Engineering. A yachtsman like his father, he sailed on the Weatherly, which successfully defended the America’s Cup in 1962.

LAW60906, Property

LAW70314, Legislation

LAW70349, Environmental Law

LAW70348, Biodiversity and the Law

LAW70369, Election Law

LAW73327, Advanced Environmental Law

LAW75753, Journal of Legislation

Climate Change Law

Legislation & Regulation

Faculty Expertise Areas

Environmental law

  • Religion and the environment — I have written several articles and book chapters on the application of Christian teachings to environmental law, and I plan to write a book on the subject in the near future.
  • Pollution – I have an ongoing project to explore how we understand and respond to pollution claims of all kinds, including environmental pollution, noise and light pollution, cultural pollution from pornography and hostile work environments, and spiritual pollution.
  • The environment in China — I have written about and studied efforts to protect the environment in China. I have had the privilege of receiving two Fulbright awards to teach and lecture about environmental law in China.
  • Endangered species and biodiversity — I have written several articles about endangered species issues, and I co-authored the first law school casebook on the subject.
  • Takings — I have taught and studied the application of the Constitution’s takings clause to a variety of environmental issues
  • The federal Superfund program — I have written two law review articles about the federal statute governing the cleanup of hazardous wastes, and I litigated numerous cases involving the law when I was an attorney with the Justice Department.
  • Federal power to regulate the environment — I have written about whether federal environmental legislation is within the scope of congressional power under the commerce clause

Legislation

  • Statutory interpretation — I have written numerous articles on how laws should be interpreted, and I worked on similar issues when I served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department
  • Campaign finance — I have written several articles examining campaign finance regulation proposals, and I wrote an article that proposes an alternative response to the charges of corruption related to campaign contributions and legislative decisions.
  • Lame duck Congresses — I wrote the first article describing how the framers of the twentieth amendment thought that they were eliminating all lame duck Congresses. My work was relied upon during the debates over the House’s power to impeach the President during a lame duck session.
  • Ballot initiatives and other forms of direct democracy — I have written and taught about numerous issues related to popular lawmaking.

Property law

  • Overview of property law — My property law casebook is now in its second edition.
  • Nuisance law – I have written two articles exploring the ways in which nuisance law addresses moral harms and ecological harms.

Interests

  • Lame Duck Legislation

Books

Law’s Environment: How the Law Shapes the Places We Live (Yale, 2010).

The Practice and Policy of Environmental Law (2d ed., Foundation Press 2010) (with J.B. Ruhl & James Salzman).

Property: Cases & Materials, with James Smith, Edward Larson & John Kidwell (2d ed., Wolters Kluwer 2008).

The Law of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2006) (with J.B. Ruhl)

The Law of Property: Cases and Materials for the Twenty-First Century (Aspen Press 2004) (with James C. Smith, Edward J. Larson & John A. Kidwell)

Questions and Answers on Property (LEXIS Publishing 2003)

The Law of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management (Foundation Press 2002) (with J.B. Ruhl)

Law Review Publications

Discounting China’s CDM Claims, 7 Loyola U. Chi. Int’l L. Rev. 9 (2009).

The Idea of Pollution, 43 UC DAVIS L. REV. 1 (2009).

The Effectiveness of Biodiversity Law, J. LAND USE & ENVT’L L. 203 (2009).

The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, 5 University of St. Thomas Law Journal 53-86 (2008).

The Spiritual Values of Wilderness, 36 Environmental Law 955 (2005).

The Appearance of Election Law, 31 The Journal of Legislation 37(2004).

How Not to Count Votes, 104 Columbia Law Review 1732 (2004).

The Lame Ducks of Marbury, 20 Constitutional Commentary 317 (2003-04)

Biodiversity and Mom, 30 Ecology L.Q. 991 (2003).

Textualism’s Exceptions, Issues in Legal Scholarship (2002)

Voter’s Intent and Its Discontents, 19 Constitutional Commentary 483 (2003)

Choosing the Judges Who Choose the President, 30 Capital University Law Review 499 (2002)

Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, 85 Minnesota Law Review 1809 (2001)

Moral Nuisances, 50 Emory Law Journal 265 (2001)

Corruption, Pollution, and Politics, 110 Yale Law Journal 293 (2000)

The Worst Statutory Interpretation Case in History, 94 Northwestern Law Review 1445 (2000)

The Recusal Alternative to Campaign Finance Reform, 37 Harvard Journal on Legislation 69 (2000)

The Commerce Clause Meets the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly, 97 Michigan Law Review 174 (1998)

Endangered Species Wannabees, 29 Seton Hall Law Review 235 (1998)

Playing Noah, 82 Minnesota Law Review 1171(1998)

A Twentieth Amendment Parable, 72 New York University Law Review 470 (1997)

CERCLA’s Mistakes, 38 William & Mary Law Review 1405 (1997)

Delaware & Hudson Revisited, 72 Notre Dame Law Review 1495 (1997)

Why Chinese Wildlife Disappears as CITES Spreads, 9 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 435 (1997)

Direct Democracy and Other Hastily Enacted Statutes, 1996 Annual Survey of American Law 535 (1996)

Corrections Day, 43 UCLA Law Review 1267 (1996)

The Missing Chinese Environmental Law Statutory Interpretation Cases, 5 New York University Environmental Law Journal 517 (1996)

Waiving Sovereign Immunity in an Age of Clear Statement Rules, 1995 Wisconsin Law Review 771 (1995)

Newt Gingrich, Dynamic Statutory Interpreter, 143 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 2209 (1995)

CERCLA, Causation, and Responsibility, 78 Minnesota Law Review 1493 (1994)

Severability, 72 North Carolina Law Review 203 (1993)

Opinion Pieces and Selected Commentary

Small mistakes cause big problems, USA Today, November 21, 2006

The last acts of the lame ducks, Chicago Tribune, November 17, 2006

Distortion by the court (ND Only – NetId required), Philadelphia Inquirer, September 26, 2006

Book Chapters

A right to clean water, in CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS: AN INTRODUCTION (John Witte, Jr., & Frank S. Alexander, eds., Cambridge 2010).

Christianity and Environmental Law, in Angela Carmela, Robert Cochran & Michael McConnell, Christian Perspectives on the Law (Yale University Press 2001)

Use of Land Serving as Habitat for Rare Wildlife and Plants, in David D. Furman, Casebook on Zoning, Planning & Land Use Law in New Jersey 361 (1996 ed)

Landowner Responsibility for the Cleanup of Hazardous Wastes, in David D. Furman, Casebook on Zoning, Planning & Land Use Law in New Jersey 363 (1996 ed).

Other Publications

The Meaning of the Prohibition on Taking an Endangered Species, Briefly . . . Perspectives on Legislation, Regulation, and Litigation, vol. 1, no. 9 (Sept. 1998)

The Rule of Law in Mainland China, 14 American Asian Review 147 (1996)

Employment Benefits of Urban Synfuels Facilities, Argonne National Laboratory Report ANL/EES-TM-201 (June 1984) (with D.Wernette, K. McCarthy & D. South)

Areawide and Local Effects of Tar Sands Development at the Sunnyside Site in Utah: A Socioeconomic Analysis, Argonne National Laboratory Report ANL/EES-TM-249 (Apr. 1984) (with D.W. South, J.W. Nagle, K.J. Rose & R.C. Winter)

Indian Point Nuclear Power Station: Verification Analysis of County Radiological Emergency Response Plans, Argonne National Laboratory Report ANL/EES-TM-228 (May 1983) (with R. Whitfield)

Regional Socioeconomic Analysis of Tar Sands Development in Utah, Argonne National Laboratory Report ANL/EES-TM-245 (July 1983) (with D. South, J.W. Nagle, & R.C. Winter)